Paulo Freire: Quotes about education

Paulo Freire was educator and philosopher. Explore interesting quotes on education.
Paulo Freire: 230 quotes17 likes

“The teacher is of course an artist, but being an artist does not mean that he or she can make the profile, can shape the students. What the educator does in teaching is to make it possible for the students to become themselves.”

Paulo Freire

Source: We Make the Road by Walking: Conversations on Education and Social Change

“The educator has the duty of not being neutral.”

Paulo Freire

Source: We Make the Road by Walking: Conversations on Education and Social Change

“One cannot expect positive results from an educational or political action program which fails to respect the particular view of the world held by the people. Such a program constitutes cultural invasion, good intentions notwithstanding.”

Paulo Freire book Pedagogy of the Oppressed

Source: Pedagogy of the Oppressed

“The unfinished character of human beings and the transformational character of reality necessitate that education be an ongoing activity.”

Paulo Freire

Source: Pedagogia do oprimido (Pedagogy of the Oppressed) (1968, English trans. 1970), Chapter 3, on dialogue.

“The more educators and the people investigate the people's thinking, and are thus jointly educated, the more they continue to investigate.”

Paulo Freire

Pedagogia do oprimido (Pedagogy of the Oppressed) (1968, English trans. 1970)

“In the banking concept of education, knowledge is a gift bestowed by those who consider themselves knowledgeable upon those whom they consider to know nothing.”

Paulo Freire

Pedagogia do oprimido (Pedagogy of the Oppressed) (1968, English trans. 1970)

“Problem-posing education affirms men and women as beings in the process of becoming.”

Paulo Freire

Pedagogia do oprimido (Pedagogy of the Oppressed) (1968, English trans. 1970)

“It is not suprising that the banking concept of education regards men as adaptable, manageable beings.”

Paulo Freire

Source: Pedagogia do oprimido (Pedagogy of the Oppressed) (1968, English trans. 1970), Chapter 2

“Education as the exercise of domination stimulates the credulity of students, with the ideological intent (often not perceived by educators) of indoctrinating them to adapt to the world of oppression.”

Paulo Freire

Source: Pedagogia do oprimido (Pedagogy of the Oppressed) (1968, English trans. 1970), Chapter 2

“Indeed, some revolutionaries brand as innocents, dreamers, or even reactionaries; those who would challenge this educational practice. But one does not liberate people by alienating them. Authentic liberation - the process of humanization - is not another deposit to be made in men.”

Paulo Freire

Source: Pedagogia do oprimido (Pedagogy of the Oppressed) (1968, English trans. 1970), Chapter 2

“It would be a contradiction in terms if the oppressors not only defended but actually implemented a liberating education.”

Paulo Freire

Source: Pedagogia do oprimido (Pedagogy of the Oppressed) (1968, English trans. 1970), Chapter 1

“Education must begin with the solution of the teacher-student contradiction, by reconciling the poles of the contradiction so that both are simultaneously teachers and students.”

Paulo Freire

Source: Pedagogia do oprimido (Pedagogy of the Oppressed) (1968, English trans. 1970), Chapter 2

“The dialogical character of education as the practice of freedom does not begin when the teacher-student meets with the students-teachers in pedagogical situation, but rather when the former first asks herself or himself what she or he will dialogue with the latter about.”

Paulo Freire

Pedagogia do oprimido (Pedagogy of the Oppressed) (1968, English trans. 1970)

“Thematic investigation thus becomes a common striving towards awareness of reality and towards self-awareness, which makes this investigation a starting point for the educational process or for cultural action of a liberating character.”

Paulo Freire

Pedagogia do oprimido (Pedagogy of the Oppressed) (1968, English trans. 1970)

“It is not possible to remake this country, to democratize it, humanize it, make it serious, as long as we have teenagers killing people for play and offending life, destroying the dream, and making love unviable. If education alone cannot transform society, without it society cannot change either.”

Paulo Freire

Source: Pedagogia da indignação (Pedagogy of Indignation) (2000, English trans. 2004), p. 47 [32]

“In problem-posing education, people develop their power to perceive critically the way they existin the world with which and in which they find themselves; they come to see the world not as a static reality, but as a reality in process, in transformation.”

Paulo Freire

Source: Pedagogia do oprimido (Pedagogy of the Oppressed) (1968, English trans. 1970), Chapter 2

“Those truly committed to liberation must reject the banking concept in its entirety, adopting instead a concept of women and men as conscious beings, and consciousness as consciousness intent upon the world. They must abandon the educational goal of deposit-making and replace it with the posing of the problems of human beings in their relations with the world.”

Paulo Freire

Source: Pedagogia do oprimido (Pedagogy of the Oppressed) (1968, English trans. 1970), Chapter 2

“Education as the exercise of domination stimulates the credulity of the students.”

Paulo Freire

Source: Pedagogia do oprimido (Pedagogy of the Oppressed) (1968, English trans. 1970), Chapter 2

“He has made use of the insights of these men to develop a perspective on education which is authentically his own and which seeks to respond to the concrete realities of Latin America.”

Paulo Freire book Pedagogy of the Oppressed

As quoted in Pedagogy of the Oppressed (2014), p.31
Pedagogia do oprimido (Pedagogy of the Oppressed) (1968, English trans. 1970)